


Bad Company

by captainellie



Category: The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Bounty Hunters, Gen, Rescue Missions, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17698985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainellie/pseuds/captainellie
Summary: Riddick's got a soft spot for kids even after they're all grown up. Dahl's never been so entertained.





	Bad Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [araydre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/araydre/gifts).



“Well looky here.” Dahl sat at the top of the ramp, legs folded together, hands loose on her knees. She raised an eyebrow as she looked down at him. “Richard B. Riddick asking for help.”

His blank expression didn’t change. It was impossible to read his eyes through the goggles. He used silence like he used everything else: a weapon.

But she’d gotten used to him during that long, terrible time with the monsters. In the handful of nights they’d run into him since. Boss Johns was going for that bounty. That’s what he said, at least, but three times without taking him in was three too many for it to be true.

Boss Johns liked Riddick, Dahl thought. Hell, couldn’t blame him. She liked the man, too.

“I’m hunting,” Riddick told her.

Dahl tilted her head. “Us?” she asked. “Because we’ve made it real damn easy if so.”

He squatted, elbows on his thighs. It looked more like an animal’s crouch than anything human. “There was a kid, a long time ago.” His voice rolled out rough and deep. “Heard she got into some trouble.”

He sure had a soft spot for kids. Dahl was too smart to say that out loud, but not too smart to pop off, “And you want little ol’ me to help you find her.”

His jaw twitched. She counted that as a win.

There were plenty of reasons someone in his position might ask for help. Actual need for it. Loneliness. Wanting a good fuck. Boredom. Access to weapons or contacts or a good ship. None of those she’d ever apply to Riddick.

She opened her mouth to ask why, then snapped it shut again. The why of it all didn’t matter none too much, not to her. Boss Johns had them on a little break after a big job that brought bounty to three different slams. She was already bored and it’d been less than twelve hours.

Dahl stood, body unfolding as she rose, easy as anything. Riddick looked up at her, still crouched, even lower than that because she had the height of the ramp in front of her.

“You got a ship?” she asked.

There was something animal and smug in his slow smile, but she didn’t worry about it none.

 

 

 

Riddick’s ship was small enough to be piloted by one person, and bare of anything personal, but still comfortable. Riddick piloted it, more hands on than most. Guess there were reasons he wouldn’t trust the ship to pilot itself. Dahl sprawled on a seat behind the flight deck, legs kicked up against the wall, idly running searches on a datapad.

Riddick hadn’t told her much, but the name he’d given was enough. Lynn Silverman. She’d been a little kid during the whole Dark Athena mess. Dahl’d heard about it. Any merc worth their oxygen had. Revas’ rise and fall was a warning for crew too interested in mutiny for their own good. She didn’t know many details about the whole thing, though. Didn’t even know Riddick’s been involved. Course, neither did most of the stories she found.

Lynn’d grown up pretty good, looked like. Smart, especially with tech. Got herself a reputation for building things. Breaking them, too. Hacking into them best of all.

A notice flashed: someone’d just put a bounty out on the kid. Not really a kid, not anymore. Probably nineteen or twenty. Good age for getting herself in trouble, too old for anyone to take it easy on her.

“Your girl’s in trouble,” Dahl said. She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t have to. Riddick could hear too much. He could hear that, too. “Got half a million bounty on her head.”

 Riddick didn’t look back at her, but his shoulders went hard and tense.

Dahl took pity on him, offered up what she knew. “She got into the wrong person’s tech. Guy’s got too much money, not enough sense. He should know better. Any good hacker’d empty his accounts, show the mercs he ain’t got the money to pay them.”

“Too good a kid for that,” Riddick muttered.

She snorted, shook her head. Back before, she never would’ve taken him for an optimist. Mostly he wasn’t, either, not until he started being fond of you. She wondered what good things he expected of Boss Johns. Of the rest of the crew. Of her.

Not enough to ask. Never that.

“Guess we’d better get to her first,” Dahl said.

“Guess so.”

There might have been a bit of laughter in that. Dahl smiled, went to lean against the control deck, away from any important button she could accidentally push. Read him some of the things she’d found.

Riddick didn’t thank her. She expected nothing else.

 

Lynn was smart enough to get herself off-grid, at least, but they’d manage to find her in this tiny outpost on a shit planet in the ass-end of nowhere. Course, Dahl was good at tracking bounties, and Riddick was good at whatever it was he did, but anyone with enough money could find the kid, too.

“Riddick?” Lynn asked, voice pitched lower than Dahl expected. She was short and thin, kept the brim of her hat tipped low over her face, but when she looked up, there was a sharp intelligence in her expression. “What the hell are you doing here?” Her eyes flicked to Dahl. “You take up with mercs now?”

Dahl held up both hands, laughed. “I’m on vacation, kid. I don’t work for free.”

Cept that’s pretty much exactly what she’s doing. No need to let on she knew it.

“There’s a bounty out for you,” Riddick told Lynn.

She rolled her eyes. “You think I don’t know that? Took a job, guy screwed me over. Now I’m the one running, and he’s off enjoying all the information I found for him. Didn’t even get paid for it.” Her eyes flashed when she looked at Dahl again. “I don’t work for free either.”

Dahl’s mouth twitched. She let it grow into a full-blown smile. This kid was something else.

“Too exposed here,” Riddick said. It was hard to tell where he looked because of those goggles. The sun was high overhead, the air hot and dry. Dahl’s throat prickled and sweat dripped down the back of her neck.

“This place is fine,” Lynn said. “What are you doing here, Riddick? When you say good-bye, it’s forever, remember?” Her words dripped with emotion despite the flat expression she wore. Bitterness. Anger. Dahl understood that.

“Heard you got into trouble, went looking for you.” Dahl hooked her thumbs in her belt. “We found you easy enough, kid. That’s not a good sign.” Of course, it wasn’t as quick as she made it sound, or as easy, but the Lynn didn’t need to know that.

Lynn scoffed. “I saw you coming,” she said. “If I’d wanted to, I’dve been gone before you even got close.”

Likely story. “Then why’re you here, kid?” Dahl asked. Every time she said the word “kid,” Lynn’s jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. Funny shit. She’d work it in wherever she could.

“Curiosity.”

“Killed the cat.” An old phrase, and an odd one for Riddick. He tilted his head back, stared at the sky, maybe, though looking straight into the light must’ve hurt even with the goggles.

“And yet, still alive.” Lynn crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re interrupting my work.”

A slow shudder climbed Dahl’s spine. She held herself still, too well-trained to give herself away with an uncontrolled reaction. Someone was out there. Something. Instinct and experience told her that much.

They were being watched.

Hunted, maybe.

“How many people are here?” Dahl asked.

“Five right now,” Lynn said. “Counting me. Seven with you, I guess. System’s all automated. Don’t need many human hands. It’s why I’m here.”

“Skiff coming in fast,” Riddick said, and the building nearest them exploded.

Dahl hit the ground, arms over her head, face pressed into the ground. When the debris stopped falling, she scrambled to her knees, one of her smaller guns out. A bigger one was strapped to her back. The biggest were back on Riddick’s ship.

She was starting to regret that now.

Riddick was hunched over Lynn, his body protecting her from the fallout. Blood dripped down one arm and something thick and gray stuck out of his side. Dahl scuttled over to them, keeping herself low. Some of the debris was big enough to come in handy for that. Good thing it hadn’t landed on any of them.

Riddick grunted when she put her hand on his side, just below the piece of shrapnel. Rock threaded with metal. Support piece blown clear. “Pull it.”

“You’ll bleed out!” Lynn’s voice was too high, thready, and her eyes were wide, her cheeks pale.

“Nah.” Riddick smiled at her. It wasn’t very comforting. “I’m good.”

He was damn far from good, but Dahl pulled the piece out anyway. Blood gushed and Riddick’s arm twitched, but that was all he reacted.

“Gotta find cover.”

Closest cover was the narrow opening into the mine, just wide enough for the automated system to send empty carts down and bring full ones up. Dahl’d been in some nasty mines, but this wasn’t too bad. Dusty, loose rocks, but not caked with dirt or mold or alien spores.

Lynn headed straight for one of the control panels and the next thing Dahl knew, one of the carts came rattling up to block the entrance. They could still out in places, but it was good cover. For the moment. It was a bad idea to stick around too long.

“There a back way out?” Dahl asked.

There was a big scratch down the side of Lynn’s face. The blood was already drying. “Yeah, about five klicks down and the same back up.”

Lots of places to get lost, then, but Lynn didn’t look too worried. Riddick wouldn’t be, either, not with those eyes of his.

“Anywhere I can get to high ground?” Dahl asked. Being that low, hills rising up in the distance, put them square in a killing zone. Not where she wanted to be.

“On top of the mine,” Lynn said. “Or on one of them.” She nodded toward the hills. Lots of open ground between here and there. Little cover. Same going up the side of the mine, least from what she’d seen.

“Shit,” Dahl muttered.

“Yeah.” Lynn’s fingers twitched like she pounded away at a machine.

“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?” Riddick always sounded like he’d swallowed rocks. Made Dahl smile every time she heard him.

Dahl resituated her big gun across her back, tucked the smaller one into its holster. “Gonna get hot down there,” she said. “You the melting type?”

“Usually do the melting myself,” he growled. Dahl rolled her eyes and managed to swallow her laugh.

“Gross,” Lynn said. She’d pulled a data pad out from somewhere and didn’t look up from it. After a second, the track hummed to life again. “Get in. We can ride down, but the rest of it’s not connected to this system. Uphill on the other side’s been mined out.”

Once the three of them were settled, Lynn sent their cart moving. Dahl looked back, saw another one slide into its place. Entrance wasn’t fully blocked, but maybe it’d be enough to slow down whoever was out there. Maybe they wouldn’t even check the mine first.

Dahl put one hand on a gun. She knew better than to deal in maybes.

The track hummed. The car rattled. Diode lights emitted a dim blue light all around them.

Riddick leaned forward, pushed his goggles up onto the top of his head. Dahl caught the shine of his eyes when he looked around. Lynn hunched over her data pad, moving schematics around very quickly.

They sank into the mine and into the darkness.

  
  
  
  


At the bottom, the track went silent. Dahl listened hard, but couldn’t tell whether anything followed them down or not. Checked her guns again.

Lynn fiddled with the cart. Next thing Dahl knew, the kid shoved two small lights into her hand. If she held one in front of her, it was just enough to let her see the ground.

“Hold it here,” Lynn said, putting it at her stomach. “Should block most of the light from going behind you. Riddick’ll go last. Stay back enough he can see without our lights blinding him. That way there’ll only be darkness if anyone comes after.”

Riddick looked at her, expression empty, but he didn’t argue. Dahl bared her teeth. It was almost a smile.

Lynn killed the rest of the lights and sent the cart back up the track. “It’ll stop up by one of the cross tunnels. Maybe they’ll hit it if they try to ride down. They’d have to unlock the system first, but it could happen. Maybe they’ll think we went sideways instead of all the way down.”

“Sideways go anywhere?” Riddick asked.

“More mine. Dead ends on both, but a long way out. With a little luck, they’ll get all turned around in there.”

“If we had a little luck, we wouldn’t be down here,” Dahl pointed out.

Lynn put her hands on her hips. “If you hadn’t come around, we wouldn’t be down here. I bet you led them straight to me.”

Dahl’d had the same thought, but wasn’t about to let it stand. “Look, kid, you’re in trouble. We’re here to help. We found you. They would, too, only a matter of time.”

Lynn’s face worked. Her jaw set hard. Her eyes flashed.

“Get moving,” Riddick said, breaking through their argument. “Unless you want to give them time to catch up.”

He didn’t sound as if he’d much mind that. Dahl wouldn’t either, if Lynn was Boss Johns or one of the crew, someone she knew and trusted. Not this kid who was too smart and too reckless without proving herself.

Dahl went first, light held at her belly button, other hand on her gun. For the first klik, there was a narrow footpath but no tracks. Past that, old tracks. Didn’t look like any system was still connected.

The going got easier along the tracks. They were in better shape than Dahl would have guessed. The climb was steep enough it made her calves burn. Behind her, Lynn breathed hard and sent rocks skittering back down. 

Riddick walked quiet, like a predator. Silent enough Dahl wanted to look back, see if he was still there. She trusted him behind her. Mostly. He didn’t make her skin crawl like she was in danger. Odds were good he wouldn’t put a shiv in her spine.

Still unnerving to have him there but quiet. Like walking with a ghost.

  
  
  
  


 

“Almost there,” Lynn said. She barely got the words out. Her breath came fast, and when Dahl turned to look at her, even in the dim blue light, her cheeks looked flushed. Wasn’t just exhaustion getting to her, though. 

Her eyes were too wide. She kept twitching every time she knocked stone against stone.

She was nervous, maybe, or scared.

Dahl tightened her hand on her gun. Stared hard at the kid. Maybe Dahl’d trusted Riddick too much. He knew from traps, but his soft spot could blind him. They could’ve walked right into a trap. No bounty on Dahl’s head, but Riddick’s was high enough Lynn might be able to use it to buy her way free.

“What’s wrong?” Lynn asked. Her voice was higher still, and she sagged where she stood. Put one hand on the wall to steady herself. 

Dahl narrowed her eyes. “You tell me,” she said. Widened her stance. Settled into her body, ready to draw, ready to dive to one side, ready to fight her way out. “You got someone waiting for us?”

Lynn stared at her, looking honestly surprised. She could have been a good actor. “Do you?” she asked after she stood goggle-eyed, mouth open. Dahl didn’t say anything. Waited her out. “How would I have someone waiting? I didn’t know you were coming. Don’t even want you here.”

There was that. “You were on your data pad long enough to call someone in. Wouldn’t need to know we’re coming for that.”

Dahl could just make out Lynn’s hand tighten into a fist around the diode. Without it, the light dimmed further, until Dahl couldn’t see much more than her hand in front of her face. “I’d sell you out in a heartbeat,” Lynn said. Her voice was hard now. “But not him.”

Not Riddick. 

Lynn’d been mad at him outside, that was clear. But loyalty could run deep, especially if you owed someone your life. Dahl didn’t know for sure, but she’d guess that was it. Riddick had a soft spot for kids. Riddick saved their lives. Riddick left, but they didn’t forget.

“Okay then.” Dahl nodded at her. Slowly, Lynn’s hand opened, giving them more light.

Stone on stone and Dahl turned fast, gun out, light held as far to her left as she could. Let them shoot at that if they were aiming.

Riddick’s eyes flashed as he came upon them, before he turned his face away. “They’re coming fast now,” he said. “There a good spot to bottleneck them?”

Lynn went back to her data pad. It lit up her face brighter than the diodes, cast long shadows under her eyes. “Partial cave-in ahead. We’ll have to squeeze a little, but it should give us a clear shot of them.”

Dahl reached back. Touched her big gun. Narrowed her eyes.

“Let ‘em get close,” she said. “Give me room to take out the rear. Keep ‘em from running.” She buzzed with energy. 

This was what she liked best. Knowing whatever it was being hunted, or hunting, was close. Knowing she’d get them between the crosshairs, and then they lived only by her choice, and died, too.

Dahl gave Lynn one of her guns. Told her to stay down, only shoot if she had to. Lynn rolled her eyes, checked bullets and safety like she knew what she was doing. Good. Dahl set herself up at the top of the rockfall, hidden and uncomfortable, but the second she laid flat, put her eye to the sight, all that pain disappeared.

Riddick stayed on the far side. Slunk into the shadows. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find even the faintest shine of his eyes.

They waited. Waited some more. So much for coming fast now. But Dahl could be patient, with her gun. Could wait hours if she needed. Days. Just her, and her weapon, and her steady pulse, and her controlled breathing.

Light in the distance. Too bright. Steady. Expensive ones, then. And stupid, down here in the dark.

They were talking, but Dahl was too focused to listen. All she heard was her own breathing, the faint movement of air coming along her back, pushed by the mine opening not all that far. Boss Johns could talk to her and she’d listen. The rest of the crew. Here and now, Riddick.

He didn’t talk. Lynn stayed silent. Dahl aimed at the last man. He wasn’t human. Too tall for that. Had to walk hunched even though the mineshaft wasn’t cramped at all. Didn’t matter. Pretty much everything had center mass.

Dahl aimed. Breathed. Let them come close.

No sound from Riddick. No movement. Lynn was still somewhere behind her.

Dahl aimed.

Breathed.

Fired.

Blood spattered across the walls, yellow-orange in the light. Screams. Gunshots. Dahl ignored it. Found her next target. More blood. Then they were too close, and Riddick exploded from the shadows, knives flashing.

By the time Dahl climbed down the rubble, the last three were dead. Lynn scanned ID chips. Mercs. Good reputations, but Dahl’d never seen them in action. If this was an example, they didn’t deserve that rep.

Lynn hacked into their private comm system. Riddick and Dahl stripped everything useful from the bodies. Cleaned their weapons. 

“No one else is coming,” Lynn said. “Not until someone notices these guys are missing.”

“Time to relocate, kid,” Dahl said.

Lynn scrunched up her face. “I’m not a damn kid.” Her hands clenched on her data pad. Looked like she might chuck it at Dahl any second.

Dahl shrugged all easy like. “No skin off my nose. Still think you should get out of here.”

For a moment, Lynn held her tough persona, but then her shoulders sank. “I thought I’d be safe all the way out here. Kept myself off the grid, even. Didn’t hack anything. Didn’t visit any of my old spaces. Don’t know where to go next.”

Dahl swung her gun across her back and clapped Lynn on the shoulder. “Think I can help with that,” she said. 

Lynn looked at Riddick. Riddick looked back, body angled so his back was to the light. Bright eyes. No smile. Gave her a nod.

“Yeah, okay,” Lynn said. Each word came out slow, until she ended with a begrudging, “Thanks.”

  
  
  
  
  


Boss Johns liked having a hacker around. He sure had a soft spot for kids, just like Riddick, even ones who thought themselves all grown up.

Riddick took off. Didn’t say where he was going. Dahl didn’t ask. Neither did anyone else.

Lynn didn’t watch him go, was face down in her data pad, but the set of her shoulders was tight.

“He’ll be back,” Dahl told her. Didn’t exactly mean it as reassurance, but sort of did at the same time.

Lynn looked at her, expression calm. “Don’t much care,” she said. The word choice, the tone, the flatness behind it -- she sounded like Dahl. Oh, kid.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Dahl said. Turned toward her bunk. Tossed back, steps not slowing, “It’s okay if you do.”

Dahl had a soft spot for kids, too.


End file.
